Plainly exquisite, Jane

The San Diego Reader reviews Jane Eyre 1996:

The chief reason to see this remake, and sufficient reason to have made it, is for the spectacle of the bony Charlotte Gainsbourg nibbling away at the meaty title role. (...)
Her face, perfect for the part, is not such as to contradict the character completely, much less deride her supposed sensitivity and intelligence and veracity, when she must describe herself as "plain." (We have "supermodel" Elle Macpherson, with Shirley Temple dimples and ringlets, for emphatic contrast.) All the same, we are free to disagree. Plainly exquisite, Jane. Exquisite, plainly. The natural pout of her outthrust chin, chipmunky stuffed cheeks, swollen lower lip, makes the slightest smile ("Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre?") all the more precious and touching. And her neck, seemingly in a state of constant craning, gives to every facial expression and every glance an extra increment of curiosity, uncertainty, innocence, strain. Gainsbourg may be a somewhat limited actress, but her limits far surpass the rudimentary demands of this Ugly Duckling-cum-Cinderella archetype. The same cannot be said of William Hurt, who lacks some of the ruined nobility required in the role of Rochester. He doesn't lack the required adjective. (Duncan Shepherd)

This article on a Burnley F.C. website (Clarets MAD) contains a Brontë reference:

The origins of the 19^th century Thomas family are buried up there in the old chapel at Blackshawhead. My ancestors on the Thomas side were hill farmers and road makers up on the Wuthering Heights moors; before they all moved down into the valley to get away from the rain; find work in the mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution and get the bus to Turf Moor. (Dave Thomas)

The moors also get a reference in the Kingston Reporter:

This was what I thought of when I thought of England. I also thought of Shakespeare’s theatre, Jane Austen’s ordered country homes, the Brontë sisters’ romantic moors, and the sleepy shire nestled in the quiet hills. (Casey Meserve)

The author Cathy Hopkins selects the best book endings on SugarScape:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
I picked this one because Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite books and Heathcliff is one of the great bad boys of literature. The book spoke to my teenage self with a story of soul mates bound together but kept apart by circumstance – it was the Twilight for my generation, really.

Flamingo House Happenings posts about Romancing Miss Brontë; NotRobotic discusses displacement in Jane Eyre and Ye Ye Orh... sajer and The Here, the Now and the Books also post about Charlotte Brontë's novel; Roger Ratcliffe has uploaded to Flickr a recent picture of Top Withins.

Categories: Fiction, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights